A Fine Balance 775demic community at the college Maneck attends. In
addition to communities defined by socioeconomic
circumstances, Mistry also portrays a variety of reli-
gious communities: The Parsis, the Hindus, and the
Muslims are key among communities in the novel.
The people within each of the communities interact
with each other, sometimes becoming friends and
even family.
Regardless of the borders between and among
the myriad communities, there is a sense that they
are constantly operating in tandem with each other.
In spite of the strict ethnic, caste, and socioeconomic
boundaries in Mistry’s portrayal of society in the
City by the Sea, characters traverse multiple commu-
nities, creating unusual but nevertheless lasting per-
sonal relationships. Community, a prevailing theme
throughout A Fine Balance, also presents a paradox:
Mistry’s characters’ sense of community allegiance
is juxtaposed with characters’ desire to transcend
and challenge the strict limits of the community
boundaries that determine their socioeconomic lot.
In addition, while the communities Mistry creates
are distinct, they are also superimposed upon each
other: Dina’s household alone represents a variety
of different religions, economic circumstances, and
generational communities.
The most integral and closely examined com-
munity in the novel is the non-biological “family”
that emerges from dire economic circumstance and,
perhaps, fate; Dina, Maneck, Ishvar, and Omprakesh
come together serendipitously for one year to forge
an interdependent group of individuals from vastly
diverse communities. Living together under one
cramped apartment roof, Mistry brings together
people from a variety of competing sectors in Indian
society: Parsis and Hindus, well-off and very poor,
educated and unschooled, young and middle-aged.
Initially, these characters are wary of each other:
Dina, a harsh taskmaster at first, watches over the
tailors’ every move, and she bosses Maneck around;
the tailors, Ishvar and Omprakesh Darji, while
desperate to find employment, worry that Dina is
taking advantage of them, and Maneck often serves
as a compassionate intermediary between Dina and
the tailors. Ultimately, as the characters get to know
each other, they appreciate, learn from, and depend
upon one another. In fact, the family they forge
cannot exist without each other. The boundaries of
caste, religion, and social class are eroded and a new,
if unorthodox, community emerges and new, mutu-
ally sustaining relationships are formed. The hap-
piness and fulfillment each character finds in this
situation is short-lived, however, due to the usual
terrible circumstances that force abrupt and often
dramatic change in the lives of Mistry’s characters.
In addition to the novel’s seminal family, which
brings together individuals from diverse communi-
ties, Mistry creates a variety of other communities
in order to explore issues that emerge in the novel.
In the rural villages, Mistry describes the “untouch-
able” Chamaar community and the senseless caste
violence against them. Mistry examines three gen-
erations of men in Dukhi Mochi, Ishvar, and
Omprakesh, who transcend traditional community
boundaries. In the urban areas, Mistry brings to
life a community of squatters who live in the slums
at the edges of the City by the Sea. In spite of the
material poverty, the characters Mistry develops are
three-dimensional and rich in humanity. They are
generous of spirit, helping each other with finding
food, employment, and housing and to adjust to
life in the slums. Maneck’s college community is
yet another kind of community Mistry develops in
order to broaden his landscape. The hazing Maneck
experiences at the hands of his peers and the cruel
loss of his friend, Avinash, at the hands of govern-
ment goondas (thugs) illustrate how Maneck is
unwittingly caught up in a web of violence.
A Fine Balance is a compelling novel because
Mistry challenges the perimeters of these various
communities and forces their participants to meet
each other, to interact, and even to get to know each
other. Characters move fluidly from one community
to the next, yet Mistry is unrelenting in illustrat-
ing how the hands of fate can sweep a character
from one community to the next with relative ease.
Ishvar, for example, goes from being a hardworking
tailor with good job prospects and aspirations for
his nephew at the beginning of the novel, to being a
legless beggar on wheels by the end. Similarly, Dina
goes from being an insouciant, independent, self-
reliant young woman with a wonderful husband, to
being a widow struggling desperately to make ends
meet, and finally, to moving back in with her brother